John Medlen, a longtime crew chief at John Force Racing and one of the leading safety innovators in the NHRA, is working feverishly on a plan to add wheel tethers to cars before the next event March 11-14 at Gainesville, Fla.
A tire that flew off the Top Fuel dragster of Antron Brown killed a spectator Sunday during the NHRA Arizona Nationals, but tethers might have kept the wheel attached to the car.
Medlen is working with Lee Beard, the team manager at Don Schumacher Racing, the organization that fields Brown's dragster.
"I'm working on the tethers right now," Medlen said Tuesday from the JFR shop in Brownsburg, Ind. "It's very doable. The axles on these cars are pretty thin, but I think we've found a way to do it.
"I'm hoping we can get it done by Gainesville, but that depends on getting approval from the NHRA. We want this to become mandatory, but we have to make sure we don't cause a new problem and weaken the axle. I think we can figure this out," he said.
Eric Medlen, John's son, was killed in a test-session accident at Gainesville in 2007. Because of that tragedy, John Medlen and JFR formed the Eric Medlen Project, a research and development operation that led to a renaissance of safety advancements in the NHRA.
Now Medlen is close to the next innovation of tethers on the Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars.
Wheel tethers made of steel cable have been used in other racing series for over a decade because of tragic incidents in the late 1990s.
In 1998, three spectators were killed at Michigan International Speedway when a tire flew into the grandstands from an accident in a CART race. A similar incident killed three people in an IndyCar Series event at Charlotte in 1999.
But rear wheels on nitro-burning dragsters are much larger and heavier (over 200 pounds) than tires on oval-track cars. And the NHRA tires spin much faster with more than 8,000 horsepower and speeds in excess of 300 mph.
"It was never an issue for us in the past," Medlen said about tires coming off the cars. "But these cars make so much horsepower now that it causes added load on the wheels. We've been seeing more of this in the last few races."
So Medlen is working to keep the wheels on the cars. And for him, that's a big step personally.
"The inability of the tire to leave the rim is what took Eric's life," Medlen said. "Had the tire removed itself from the car, his accident would not have been fatal."
So there is some increased danger to the driver by keeping the wheel tethered to the car. If that means keeping spectators safe, Medlen believes it's the right thing to do.
"You have to weigh the options to determine the best thing to do overall," Medlen said. "In this particular case, along with other safety changes we've made, [injuring the driver] is the most remote possibility."
Terry Blount is a senior writer for ESPN.com.